Folks:

Another picture, again featuring damage to hemlocks, but one of the trees in this picture is a black cherry.

--Spruce

well I guess you could clear away the rest of the mess and plant some good understory trees like redbuds or dogwoods.

Some of the trees downed were large hardwood trees, but they were not so hard hit as the conifers. As you can see I have started to remove this large red maple from the road.

--Spruce

In my original post I emphasized the damage to Norway spruce trees. I couldn't get a good perspective for a picture of my groves at my timberland, but here is a grove nearby. If you look carefully, you can see that almost all the trees lost their tops.

--Spruce

This picture is of my timberland. You can see the Norway spruce tree tops laying on the forest floor. It is hard to see clearly, but in this picture there are 6 or 8 tree tops laying around. Awful!! This shows what three feet of very heavy wet snow--and wind--can do.

--Spruce

Hey Spruce,

I'm curious as to what your feelings are when you see this damage. I wonder if you look at it as just part of what happens in nature, or if you feel an overwhelming sense of loss, or something in between. Do you think the damage is something that will impact your long-term plans or just a temporary setback. I've always been fascinated by your "project", but also with your part (you as the caretaker, your plans, the impact that the land has on you, etc) of the picture.

I know that sometimes I feel a real sense of loss when I loose a tree or group of trees to predation, disease, or whatever. But, I also realize that the problems I face are microscopic compared to what you are seeing.

Maybe I missed the original thread, but was the damage caused by Sandy or that derecho this past spring/summer?

yes.. i have a guilt feeling.. that i assigned this pix posting project... lol .. but i dont recall the cause of the storm ... can you link us back to the original post ... thx

and thx for the time and effort.. to get it all here for us ...

i am with brandon here.. wondering .. about your wisdom on the experience ... on one level.. it is natures way ... and i could live with it ....

on another level.. i would really be pissed off about my 'plan' .. and how mother nature had another plan ...

i suppose there is an even older post.. describing where.. how.. when.. the whole dream started ... if you could link to that it would be great.. or give me the title.. and i will try to search it out ...

thx for the followup.. merry Christmas.. and happy new year ..

ken

Some free thinning, at least.

Just kidding. Looks very similar to the forest around my VA house in Feb, 1994. Not nearly as many conifers in VA, tho.

The recovery should be interesting, and I bet, eventually encouraging. In VA, sourwoods & other understory trees exploded in growth & occurrence after being "released". The standing canopy trees began filling in the gaps w/amazing speed.

Did your larches fare better?

This post was edited by beng on Thu, Dec 20, 12 at 10:20

No matter what, it's got to be hard to reconcile a bunch of spruce with their tops broken off. That's not going to fix itself even if/when the trees do inevitably begin the long, slow process of reestablishing new leaders. Tough deal the way I see it although of course, nature ultimately doesn't care.

High precipitation areas all over the globe are typically associated with luxuriant plant growth and tall trees. It's tough to see a way in which that has been reversed in this case. I feel for you Spruce. Within the timeframe of one human life, those stands will never recover to what they were heading towards. Sure, something else good will happen, but for those trees it's clearly a negative occurrence.

+oM

Sometimes its a matter of being thankful for what remains. I was in Raleigh, NC not long after hurricane Hugo ripped through the Carolinas and was amazed by how so many conifers could be snapped in half (and Raleigh wasn't the hardest hit area).

I feel for you spruceman, but, fortunately, there is still a lot remaining.

tj

First, thanks for the concern and sympathy you all have shown--it is much appreciated.

The storm was the "superstorm" Sandy, which was a hybrid between the hurricane which took an unusual turn inland, and a storm coming from the west. In the mountains of MD and WVA it was a kind of hurricane snow. But it was not so much the wind as it was the very heavy snow which was very heavy and sticky. The original post was called "Norway spruce--horrendous storm damage/destruction." I will add a reply to refresh it and put it on the first page of the topics.

Brandon: yes, this is a part of nature, or so I try to tell myself. This storm, however, was a freak, so although it was nature, not any nature we see often. I am having a hard time dealing with this. Over time I will adjust to the new reality, and much of the timberland is relatively unaffected. But some of my most favorite groves were the Norway spruce. In places these were not very badly affected, but in other places they are a bit of a mess, and will never look nearly as nice. Where one or two of the trees were broken, the others will fill in the gaps, but in some other places, all of the nicest and tallest soaring spruce trees are broken beyond the point where they can re-grow tops. Some that are more in the open, and which had 15 feet or less broken, will grow new tops fairly well.

Ken: thanks, your thoughts are appreciated. Merry Christmas.

Beng: The larches fared worst of all, especially the Japanese larches. Of all that I planted years ago, probably 90% have been destroyed. Some were destroyed in early snows 2 or 3 years ago. I will include a picture of one of the last, showing how it was broken. Larches do not re-grow tops very well--once they have some substantial break, they are basically done. I loved the larches mixed in with the spruces and pines, especially in the fall with their wonderful color. They are a real loss.

Tom: thanks for your understanding. With your love of Norway spruce, you can feel what I feel. But, I DO have a lot of really nice spruces left. One way to look at it, is that if I saw this land for sale now, I would still buy it, and think of the Norway spruce as a treasure.

Tsugajunkie; Yes, you have it exactly right.
But, I will at times, for some years to come, think about the trees I have lost. Sometimes the losses can overwhelm our ideas of what remains.

--Spruce

Too bad about the larches -- a bit surprising to me. I understand they still had some foliage, but larch wood is tough and strong for a conifer. The problem apparently is the trunks/branches being relatively slender & underbuilt -- nixing any advantage.

When I saw the virgin hemlock grove (prb'ly a hundred 300-500 yr old trees) at 4000' Mountain Lake, VA, not one of the largest had an intact top. All had been broken at some point & re-established their leaders. The only unbroken trees were more slender, younger ones (which were still easily over 100' tall). Hurricane Hugo broke just about all the remaining intact ones in 1989.

As good a place as any to bring this up-I've seen it posited that one of the main reasons for the generally taller coniferous forests of the PNW, including N. Cali, is the absence of such storm events. Yet being a weather geek, I pay attention to storminess occurring out there and have heard plenty of mention of high winds accompanying some of the truly stupendous snowfall totals that can occur. Think pineapple express storms slamming into the Sierras, or the routine heavy dumpings that take place in the Cascades. Those are not all windless events. Nor are they all occurring above the tree line.

So I'm left with no answer really. Why aren't all the tops broken off the big Doug. firs, spruce, hemlock, etc. out west?

+oM

So, Tom, do the west coast storms compare to east coast hurricanes with 100-200 mph sustained winds that last for hours? From what I know (or think I know), there is really no comparison wind wise in frequency, strength, and duration from the east and west coast "storms". Lightening is also much more common east of the rockies than west of them and also contributes to tall tree damage in some cases, right?

Spruceman, you have my sincere condolences. I think you are taking it much better than I would and I can only imagine the scope of your project. I do think you are right in your thinking about cherishing the untouched spruce that remain. Sometimes, it takes a loss to really appreciate what you have left (not that you chose to have these beauties abused!) and any potential new owner might appreciate the more "mature look" of a forest that has recovered from a serious damaging event. They may not even realize it, but since all forest sooner or later have a hazardous incident, nearly all of them have trees in various stages of growth and decline, like yours will now have and should look "normal" to them. I would wager your woods are still remarkable even with the new development.

Good luck and keep us updated!

John

This post was edited by j0nd03 on Fri, Dec 21, 12 at 13:05

No John, I've not heard of 200 mph winds coming onshore out on the W. coast. In reality, a sustained 200 mph wind on land would be a rarity in any weather event, I think. But in any case, your point is well taken. For the ultimate wind events, those of hurricanes would top all others. And also correct, there is more lightening in the east than out west, though it occurs there too.

Still, I've seen weather guys tallying up snowfall amounts,especially it seems, in the Sierra Nevada range of N. Cali occasionally reaching ten or more feet at a time! That's just a lot of snow, and not a real rare occurrence. Nor would it be true to say that western snows are necessarily of a drier nature than the big eastern snowfalls. I believe that this varies considerably out west, with some of those very juicy "pineapple express" events bearing very large loads of moisture indeed.

Just wondering out loud really-about that fact that while very tall trees can be found growing both east and west, the over-arching tendency is for the western conifer stands to be taller.

+oM

I think the primary reason that the trees near the west coast are taller is a combination of good, deep soils, a milder climate, favorable precipitation, and the specific species growing there. I don't think that the kinds of storms has very much to do with it, although that has some influence also.

But to focus on the storms: both the east and west have strong storms, but in the east the storms can be a bit more destructive to trees. First, ice storms are perhaps the most damaging kind of storms that trees can suffer. These are rare along the coast. In fact, I can't remember any while I was there, although near the more northern part of the coast there may have been some at some point.

And, I have never heard of any ice storms in the Sierra Nevada, and I doubt there have been many in the Cascade range.

Thunderstorms are common in the Sierra--in fact I enjoyed a big one one time and took shelter in a hollow Giant Sequoia log and watched it. Incredibly beautiful. These storms produce lightning that strikes the tops of trees, especially the Giant Sequoia. But fir and pine trees with tops damaged by lightning are rare. But the Thunderstorms on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada don't produce the wind gusts that our eastern thunderstorms do.

Well, I could try to describe a little more about the weather. But, as I said at the beginning, I think the breakage caused by storms is a minor factor in the fact that the eastern forests do not grow so tall. Many of the tallest forests in the eastern US do not show extensive breakage of tree tops. There is a nice grove of virgin hemlock in the Swallow falls State Park in MD. Few of these trees show any important damage to their tops. The tallest and oldest white pine groves do not show extensive damage to their tops. Some trees suffer substantial damage, but not a majority, or anywhere near that many. Yes, there is more storm damage than you will see in the western forests, and it has had some effect, but not so much that it accounds for the much, much taller trees near the West Coast.

In the east, the benchmark for a very, very tall tree is 150 feet. In the west the same benchmark would be 300 feet or close to it. Storm breakage can account for only a little of the 150 foot difference.

--Spruce

Ice, snow, thunderstorm, hurricanes... all "extreme" storms capable of "extreme" damage and are "extreme"ly different animals.

Don't know which I'd rather have around my conifer forest; 1" ice and 30 mph winds, 1' wet snow and 60 mph winds, lightening 2x per second with 100 mph gusts, or 130 mph sustained 150 mph gusts for several hours. Well, I would rather have the short thunderstorm but you know what I am saying. All can be very devastating.

Good analysis, Spruce. Can't say I can argue any of your points. Tom, I may not be your #1 fan (I think Ken has spoken for that honor) but I am pretty darn high up on the list, too ;)

John

Spruceman, I'm sorry your timberland was hit so hard. I know how unhappy I am when one tree is destroyed by deer, but I can't imagine what it would feel like to have so many trees, that you have planted and nurtured, damaged or destroyed.

Have large numbers of trees been destroyed by windstorms on the US west coast? It can happen as in the 1962 Columbus day storm. "In terms of timber loss, about 11.2 billion board feet was felled by the Big Blow in Oregon and Washington combined."

This year is the 50th anniversary of the storm, so we've been reminded of it. This extratropical cyclone stretched from northern California to southern British Columbia. Some wind speeds recorded: 145 mph along the southern coast of Oregon and 160 mph along the southern coast of Washington state. And we did not know a storm of any magnitude was coming!

How much is 11.2 billion board feet? It's apparently almost twice the 2010 timber harvest in Oregon and Washington: about 3.2 billion in OR and 2.7 in WA.

-m

Here is a link that might be useful: The

This post was edited by IshCountryGal on Sat, Dec 22, 12 at 0:51

Is there a way to fix the name of a link when editing? It looks OK in the preview, but not when posted. I'll see if it works this time.

Here is a link that might be useful: The

Very interesting find, Ish. Spruce, I'm sure there are other factors beyond the climatological. It's just one thing I've heard or read about the tree size disparity. Thanks all for humoring my slight diversion of this thread!

+oM

Nature in east N America is tougher in tooth & nail than the forested areas of the NA west (and west Europe). Some major reasons:

1. Continental climate -- extreme/rapid temp changes. Trunk-bark cracking on the south side killed three ~80' Norway maples at my house from the bitter-cold 76/77 and 77/78 winters. The fourth one that had shade on its trunk from a garage had no problem.
2. Spring/summer violent thunderstorm winds -- especially bad on lush, fully-leafed hardwoods.
3. Wet snow/ice-storms -- more common in E NA. Total snow amounts aren't directly important -- the stickiness is (then the amounts are important).
4. Hurricanes & tropical storms in late summer/autumn. Sandy-storm...
5. Summer high-humidity & associated fungi & bacteria.
6. Winds. Not that the west has slower winds, but larger & more extensive mountains provide more potential shelter. Coastal redwoods get tallest behind shelter of the coastal ranges. The tallest east-coast forests are in sheltered coves of the Smokies.
7. Lightning. Certainly in the US southeast and southern plains, but even in western MD, prb'ly my favorite tree growing up, a 90' Nordmann fir, was mostly (except for one branch) done in by a direct strike.

The northwest-exposed sycamore on my lot at 115' is hardly gaining height any more. Not that it doesn't try, but invariably the strongest Tstorm of the summer shreds leaves/new sprouts off the top. But it's spreading out & thickening at a good rate. Where I grew up, a nearby open-grown 350 yr old white oak (8 ft dia) was a mere 90' tall, but over 100' wide. There was no branch damage at the top, just the growth slowing to a crawl there. The lesson for a tree seems to be, if you want to live centuries in eastern NA, keep a relatively low but wide profile, and have trunk-bark thick enough to insulate against freeze-thaw cracking...

Prb'ly a dozen of the 100'+ white pines that grow above the canopy have been broken/uprooted & vanquished just downwind of me on the lower slopes in 9 yrs. They need physical shelter and/or a dense, self-protecting "grove", like the original PA stands, to get taller. This prb'ly goes for any tall canopy trees here.

I noticed Spruceman's Norway spruce & hemlock stands looked quite dense & got hammered, but that just shows localized extreme events can damage or even destroy any stand no matter what. The 1994 ice-storm in VA caused a whole nearby east-facing slope (at least 30 acres) of mostly 100'+ tuliptrees to uproot. It must have been like dominoes -- the highest-slope trees sagging downslope against their neighbors, finally giving way, then w/the added weight, those trees uprooting, etc, etc, down to the bottom. A sight of carnage just a mile downslope of me. That ice-storm produced four inches of liquid-equivalent sticking to surfaces. 4" liquid is equivalent in weight to ~40" snow -- but all of it sticking.

....so you're saying the Nordmann fir survived! JK, sounds like a bad deal. And that last episode you relate with all the tulip trees knocking each other over had to have been both awesome and awful.

I guess I know all this stuff already, just looking for discussion, predicated on the calamity in Spruce's woodlands. The pathogen factor certainly accounts for some of this. I think of the case of aspen: I'd be willing to wager these trees grow faster in a moist N. Wisconsin site than they do in many of their western slopes. But with the dry air in the Rockies during much of the year, they're able to live much longer lives, not being subjected to the canker-forming diseases they get back east. Hence the really tall and beautiful aspen stands in say, Colorado. That one example is but one of many different means by which many tree species are able to achieve greater height in the west than in the east.

Like you;ve said too, the presence of tall mountain ranges allows for greater overall variability in site conditions in the west. I once spent a summer on the lee side of Vancouver Island. Big, big western red cedars abounded, as did many large Doug. firs. And all summer long, there was no rain. Now the very day I left, must have been late August, a rain shower did occur. A local guy said that it would soon do this every day. Since that time, I've learned that local tourism boards and so on call this area the "sun coast", to market it as a place where there is plenty of nice, dry weather. I'd guess that the ocean-ward side would be quite different. As an aside, I've read that since the felling of the old-growth forests on the ocean-ward side of the island, overall precipitation declined measurably. It seems that the extra bit of orographic lift provided by dense forests of two hundred+ ft. height added to the overall lifting of atmospheric currents coming onshore during storm events, and that once removed, the effect was lessened.

Now Im getting carried away!

+oM

Tom, my parents moved the next yr & the new owners cut it down. All it would have taken was a little imagination & skillful cutting & it would've survived.

Spruce,
Nothing I can say to change how you feel. After our worst ice storm on record Jan 2009, everything looked horrible, or just plan gone. 3' dia. Sugar Maples stripped to trunks that then died for example. Been 4 years of regrowth since, and it doesn't look as bad, but there are reminders everywhere. It really really bothered me when it happened. But finally it dawned on me. It was a forest succession event. Where saplings in the undergrowth are released, and have a chance to become dominant. Chances on the forest floor for new species, some probable endangered, to take hold and grow. Broken limps and trunks will create nesting holes, and food for more wildlife. Wildflowers will flower in the spring, adding to the visual appeal. Dogwoods will get more air circulation so that if Anthracnose is a problem there, the trees will be more favored and have a chance to recover and evolve resistance. So while these events are certainly awful, I learned to appreciate the benefits as well, and that made it easier to accept.

As for the storms in the west, they frequently have hurricane force wind associated with them. But the trees are not the same at all elevations. At the altitudes where those heavy snows occur, the trees are much much shorter, and have very short limbs. VERY columnar in shape, so that they resist the snow buildup much better. Lower down, there is less snow, and the trees are more spreading, and often different species. These tend to be dense and self-protecting to a point. But IMHO, since they live with it ev every winter, they grow to be able to withstand those conditions. Therefore, usually there is not a large lose from any single storm. JMHO. One thing western forests do deal with much more than in the east... FIRE! Obviously a very destructive influence, but required for the ecosystem as a whole.

One of the strangest sights of my time in Washington State was going up Mount Rainer on a switchback road. At one point the trees were normal sized (30-40') and typical of high snow areas. Make a turn a couple hundred yards later, and 50-60' higher on the same mountain side, and there is nothing but stunted dwarf trees.....we were above the tree line just like that in those 50 or so feet.

Again Spruce, I am sorry this happened. Find solace if you can, in the good that will come of it.

Arktree

Arktree:

Thanks. These woods were, actually, too pretty to believe. They had escaped serious storm damage for many, many years, and all my TSI thinnings had helped create a forest of special beauty. Well, back to reality! This storm, however, was a total "freak." It was nature, but not any nature I have ever seen.

But almost 40 years ago, in a very localized area in the same county, I saw some absolutely horrendous ice storm damage that was worse than what happened to parts of my timberland. About half the trees were broken off and had all their limbs stripped off, and the rest of the trees had severe damage. I have feared that kind of damage in my timberland. But this was SNOW. It completely shocked me that snow could do this damage. So many Norway spruce tree tops broken off. How can that be??

Mount Rainer! Yes, one of my favorite places. I visited there about three times. My favorite trees? --the tall Noble fir on the lower slopes--those are the most wonderful "true" fir trees in the world.

Well, that whole world is slated for complete destruction some day, if the vulcanologists predictions are right about the probability of an eruption/explosion of the sort that hit Mt. St Helens, except much bigger.

Ah yes, all is transient!

--Spruce